


one's bark is worse than one's bite

by littlemachines



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Light Angst, M/M, my speciality, there's some bad mythology humour in there too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 18:27:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3820405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemachines/pseuds/littlemachines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joseph had yet to discover the secret behind attraction and how it excluded no species, not even the heartless ones. The hollowness in his chest only left more room for Sebastian to fill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	one's bark is worse than one's bite

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: i've added some stuff and a whole new scene so if you've read it before uh..... read it again (particularly the end)  
> so...... this is my first (of many) (i hope) (when i’m done with the hell called college) joseb fic go easy on me @ joseb fandom  
> there’s a lot of weird time skips and some worldbuilding and a little Tragic Backstory™ because boy do i love that shit but just don’t pay any attention to joseph’s age (i confused myself writing it)  
> ANYWAY so its another one of those vampire/werewolf fics. its somewhat canon with some divergence like no beacon, joseph drinks blood and seb pees on lampposts and chases his own tail once in a full moon, as ya do  
> i've tried to fix the mistakes as best as i can but excuse if there's still any!! i hope all those reading enjoy!!!  
> p.s. there’s a mention of throwing up food at one point and a fair bit of blood because ya know, vampire stuff – just to warn y’all!!

Sebastian chuckled at Joseph’s grimace. “You’re a blood-sucking mythical creature from the depths of hell that can leave the house thanks to the invention of sun cream and yet” – he spun in his chair to meet Joseph’s indignant glare, unflinching – “you can’t believe some fucked up bastard organised his homicidal rampage over Facebook?”

Joseph only frowned harder, glaring at the complications the input of technology had added to the paperwork for the case. Sebastian’s laugh trailed off but his smile, amused and perhaps slightly disbelieving, remained as he shook his head and murmured, “Sometimes, I forget you’re an old man.”

“I’m referring to how he forgot that social media records are never truly destroyed. It was an illogical move on his part” – Sebastian mumbled something along the lines of _I’ll quit my damn job when someone mass murders using logic_ – “and don’t call me that. I still have another couple of hundred to go before the title fits.”

“Are all vampires sensitive about their age?”

Joseph told himself that he was above baits, especially any that his work partner dangled in front of his face to provoke him. He told himself that even as he bit back, “Are all werewolves lazy and avoiding their paperwork?”

Unoffended, Sebastian put his palms up, smile just as wide, if not wider, and the sight felt like a memory. Joseph was still growing accustomed to the slow but sure return of the light-hearted grin.

Warmth spread within him. Joseph had yet to discover the secret behind attraction and how it excluded no species, not even the heartless ones. The hollowness in his chest only left more room for Sebastian to fill.

He sighed but Sebastian’s hunter vision focused on him with an intensity that he thought would’ve made him blush had his circulation run like a normal person. Even the thought of it made him embarrassed, as though he were a teenager with a crush as opposed to _a blood-sucking mythical creature from the depths of hell_ (which wasn’t entirely factually accurate – no one actually knew where vampires came from but fire was as much as their enemy as holy water.) Sebastian smirked when he caught the sight of the edge of Joseph’s lips twitching upwards, fighting a smile that you would think one hundred and seven years of _acting_ human would’ve concealed by now. But Joseph had never been in love before nor had he known Sebastian Castellanos.

Most of the time, Joseph was just thankful that he didn’t have a heart because he was sure that Sebastian’s high-tuned senses would pick up on the erratic heartbeat, stuttering at the sight of his work partner’s mouth teasing him with a fond smile.

*

The move from Toronto to Krimson City was, ideally, not meant to be a complicated affair. Joseph had three boxes, a new passport that told the world he was twenty-six and a Canadian citizen, half Japanese. His closest neighbour, a friendly enough man, had never quite grasped the fact that he wasn’t Chinese and Joseph had little patience to explain the problems of assuming that he was, that ‘Chinese’ was a language itself, that he spoke Japanese for the entertainment of others. It was amazing that Joseph had seen progression in human understanding but many still clung to ignorance, feigning it as protection. Some vampires had glorified themselves to be the product of evolution, physically and mentally, but Joseph simply concluded that hunger didn’t discriminate. Or perhaps their discrimination was different, if vampire serial killers were to be considered.

Though he had quickly grown tired of the bigotry he thought he could escape after a century, he hadn’t found it in him to hate humans. Rather, he was going to Krimson City with the intention of protecting them, among other things.

And there he finally took back his own name. _Joseph Oda_.

He didn’t leave behind many people in Toronto, having learnt the hard way that human friends were fragile at the very least, dangerous at the worst. It had only been twenty years since human-vampire alliances had opened up blood banks for feeding and a truce of protection, dignity and secrecy. If a vampire chose organic then they were expected to abide by specific rules, specific restrictions to humans, specific blood intakes for specific body types, specific times, specific use of charms, and specifics were complicated. Rules didn’t sit well with the older vampires but the turn of the century had terrified them. Human advancements were the reason that Joseph’s kind were able to walk in daylight hours with little discomfort (they experienced what humans called ‘sunburn’ but lotions allowed them to play the part of humans if they so wished) and, if nothing else, human protection was at the expense of human threat. It wasn’t like how it was at even the time of Joseph’s Turning. Vampires had always been more agile, aware of their surroundings. They only lost their lives if they were arrogant. More often than not, Joseph learnt that underestimating humans would most likely get you a stake through your empty chests.

Regardless, the New Age was different, for humans and vampires alike. Vampires owed humans and humans had unashamed weapons, technology and terrifying intelligence to kill them – or worse. The politics of it all didn’t interest Joseph but it was likely that the debt – and guilt – he felt towards humans was another motivating factor towards his move down south.

Krimson City’s homicide rate was a rising concern in the alliances.

No, Joseph hadn’t moved to make friends or to make a home out of the city that was a constant grey, a relief to Joseph’s skin. His new apartment was neat in an empty sort of way and he didn’t have neighbours that asked him about where he was _really_ from. The local blood bank was plentiful and the vampire that worked there – a beautiful, if not somewhat terrifying, woman called Tatiana – had welcomed Joseph into Krimson City with an amused smile. Joseph had considered asking her about how much of the murder count was down to their own kind but thought better of it. A few trips later and Joseph had established that it wasn’t anything personal; Tatiana simply looked at everyone like she wanted to eat them alive.

Vampires weren’t meant to be creatures of settlement though Joseph had wondered, late at night when he pretended to be sleeping for the sake of outward appearances, if his knowledge on the history of his own kind was outdated (irony, he also found, was something all vampires appeared to be good at, himself included.)

History taught him that vampires didn’t build homes because what was the point? Eventually, someone would get suspicious about their reclusive night time nature or the company they kept, bare-necked and flushed dry, or even simply the eeriness of their entire being, the pale parlour of their skin and the dilation of their pupils at the first scent of an open wound, and, despite the advantages they had above humans on speed and strength, they were expected to play safe. If they could escape before they were staked or simply pulled out of their homes and left under the sun to burn then let that be a lesson. All immortal creatures were not made for human life or commitment. They moved, from place to place, and Joseph didn’t allow himself the luxury of thinking about the _what if_ s.

But he was immortal by life, not infinite by strength. If he were part of evolution then it wasn’t over. There had to be something stronger than a creature of night that stayed inside with his thoughts, with questions that only time could answer and it was dangerous for vampires to be impatient but it was beginning to show, like the cracks on his lips from being under the sun.

_Would you move if you didn’t have to?_

Having expended the fabric of wasting time, Joseph had washed his mouth clean twice for good measure after breakfast (a little more than normal though the moments of loss of control had become rare for him for a long time) and left for his new workplace the morning after his arrival.

Krimson City Police Department was less welcoming than Tatiana but maybe that was simply because it was busy, another huge case rocking the foundations of the building. Joseph was led by a man who introduced himself as Connelly, Oscar Connelly, an officer who talked casually, as if the chaos around them was background noise. Joseph let him, following him to the chief’s office only to find it empty, save for a scent of something not quite like the usual muscle-blood-life of the humans that surrounded them. Connelly appeared off-put for a minute before an idea crossed over his expression and he ushered Joseph in another direction, leaving him no time to decode the scent but he found, as he followed the other man. Whatever it was, it was getting stronger, human but something deeper, louder, feral.

Snippets of conversations, whispers, caught in Joseph’s hearing, distracting him from the mysterious scent, and he pulled at the edge of his gloves to secure them tighter, as if the voices who spoke of _blood loss_ and _inhumane slaughtering_ would realise who he was, _what_ he was. The responsibility, the guilt, made him swallow, even when he didn’t need to. He had picked up human nervous tics.

_Would you move if you had a reason to stay?_

“Here we are.” Connelly stopped at a door and tapped a knock against the glass of a door before turning to explain, “Detective Castellanos. He spoke about how he’d be having a new partner now that him and Myra are- well, she was planning to move to Missing Persons for a while now but-”

A response from beyond the door cut Connelly off and Joseph was thankful, not interested in any work gossip, not when the mysterious scent had heightened his sense of smell so much that it was hard to focus on anything else. When the door opened and Connelly marched inside, Joseph struggled to take a step, the scent making it difficult to breathe. Feral, wild, _animalistic_. Another habit. The appearance of breathing. Joseph forgot sometimes that he didn’t need to.

“Connelly?”

The man who spoke was stood beside the window, turning towards them but Joseph had caught how he had been peering out between the gaps in the blinds. He could’ve opened them to look more comfortably but there was something about the way he stood that suggested that wasn’t an option, muscled arms crossed over the expanse of chest, shoulders tense. He looked past Connelly to Joseph with a suspicion that Joseph felt he deserved. Suspicion and then realisation.

_Would you stay if you had no reason to move?_

Joseph expected the detective to reach for his gun, to kill him there and then, and maybe Joseph would have let him. Maybe Joseph wouldn’t have had a choice against another creature that could move faster than the human eye could comprehend. Just like him but not quite.

But the man simply looked away and Joseph stared at the touch too long dark hair that threatened to obstruct his view of the cut of jaw and the stubble that covered it. Connelly was explaining the chief’s absence and the situation that couldn’t have been more than two sentences but the officer had made it a novel that neither of the detectives in the room were following. Detective Castellanos was looking out the window again, giving Joseph the time to survey the office in the dim light. If who he assumed to be his partner in the field let him live then he had every intention of cleaning the place up, starting with the papers that littered the single desk.

“It’s fine, Connelly,” the detective said suddenly, his small smile soothing over the sharpness of the interruption. Connelly didn’t look offended at being cut short but simply nodded when the detective added, “I’ll take it from here. I’ve been expecting Detective Oda.”

The title neither sounded wrong nor right but heavy. Joseph avoided the sidelong glance his new partner was giving him.

After Connelly left, the door swung shut to a silence. There was a frame on the desk and a wedding band on the other man’s hand.

He broke the silence first, eyebrows raised as he turned fully towards Joseph and nodded at his hands. “The gloves?”

There was no point in lying but Joseph didn’t feel like giving him the truth. Not entirely. He owed humans a lot of things but this man wasn’t human. Not exactly. “My hands are particularly sensitive to the sun.”

He hummed, as if feigning casualness. Joseph’s tone was dry, his reply careless. “If I do intend to kill you, Detective Castellanos, I’ll take the liberty of removing the gloves for my enjoyment and your peace of mind. Though my fingerprints may be difficult to analyse.”

It could’ve been a joke too far – a death sentence – but the detective simply blinked as if surprised that he was able to joke at all and Joseph noticed how his eyes were as green as the surroundings that he imagined the other man belonged in more, sunlight on leaves, not this dingy office with the bin overflowing with coffee cups and the potted plants fake and unenthusiastic. And then Detective Castellanos grinned. Wolfish.

_Do we not build homes because we know we’re beyond human attachment or because we fear we aren’t?_

When he stretched out his hand, Joseph took it in his gloved one. “Call me Seb.”

_Would you stay?_

*

Being around Sebastian Castellanos taught him more about werewolves than any book.

Accepting that he wasn’t the only mythical creature in the workforce wasn’t difficult. Vampires hadn’t been the only ones who’d settled truces with humans but Joseph hadn’t been particularly acquainted with other immortals, though it had been a good few decades since he’d wandered into a city that had a pack.

And that still stood. Krimson City’s werewolves were far and few, too little to form a pack, Sebastian had explained when they went for a drink at a nearby bar, though Joseph didn’t drink and Sebastian didn’t share his theories as to why. Hollywood had created a feud between vampires and werewolves but Joseph suspected that, if it was his own kind behind the generous murders in the city, it made little sense for anything else to claim it as their territory.

And Sebastian wasn’t immortal. Had it not been for the sheer smell of _dog_ that radiated from a body that ran hotter than a space heater, so much that even Joseph’s permanently cold state felt warmer in the other man’s presence, Joseph wouldn’t have noticed he was anything but human. He was a couple of years on the age Joseph had been Turned but it showed, the laughing winkles around his eyes suggesting that, despite his job, he was a happy man. Joseph soon learned that he was replacing who was now Sebastian’s fiancée. Myra Hanson, who Joseph met soon after, was a beautiful woman and a werewolf herself. She had tensed as soon as she smelt him but relaxed when Sebastian pressed a hand to the small of her back. She had a no-nonsense attitude that Joseph both admired and feared and she told him that she wished him every luck with dealing with her soon-to-be husband. He needed the luck. Sebastian’s desk wasn’t the only thing that was disorganised.

Much to his own surprise, the other detective withheld any judgements that Joseph had been prepared for. He ordered Joseph a glass of water and had little interest in talking about the _what_ ’s but stuck to the _who_ ’s. So when Joseph talked about Toronto and the casually racist neighbour and Sebastian laughed, he did too, the sound weak from disuse but genuine, all the time. He’d felt human as Sebastian’s hand squeezed his shoulder, a contrast of hot skin on cold body, and very much not when Sebastian said that he _really_ hoped Joseph would be able to help the KCPD.

Joseph hadn’t moved to Krimson City to make friends but Sebastian left him little choice.

Werewolves, he found, were instinctual, perhaps more so than vampires. From his first case alone, a simple enough shooting to decode, Joseph learnt that Sebastian’s patience was one to be tempered with and he easily threatened violence when suspects refused to cooperate. By the third case, Joseph had learnt to appreciate that trait, finding that there were some humans that were immune to even vampire charm.

Instinctual but mortal. Werewolves stomached human food just fine, unlike Joseph who had kept up appearances by attending lunch only to throw it up after until Sebastian had suggested he buy them lunch and ate them both without difficulty in the secrecy of their office. Though Joseph wasn’t sure if that was a werewolf thing or a Sebastian thing.

The only indicator that Sebastian had recently shifted was his scent choking Joseph, even after he had grown accustomed to it, so much he smelt Sebastian on his skin, his clothes, in his apartment when Sebastian hadn’t even set foot in it (not until their fourth case that had them wracking their heads together outside the office.) Sebastian seemed careless but his secrets never disturbed their work. Joseph had never seen him shift, had no idea what his wolf even looked like, and he told himself that he wasn’t hoping to. If Joseph owed Sebastian nothing then Sebastian owed him less. Joseph refused to drink blood in front of him, even when they were alone in Joseph’s apartment, not even allowing the other man to drive him to the blood bank.

Maybe they were both pretending to be human but still Joseph would sit at the windowsill, letting the full moon bleach him paler, head pressed against the glass that was just as cold. When he closed his eyes, he no longer saw blackness but the white of Sebastian’s teeth when he smiled, of Myra’s shirt before Sebastian touched it with mud-stained hands, of the confetti that fell into his eyes thankfully so Sebastian didn’t have to confirm on his own wedding that vampires could indeed cry, of the inside of a room at the back of a house with a garden, perfect for raising a baby girl, wrapped in purity and protection and cradled in the arms of her parents, a moment so intimate that Joseph opened his eyes, stepped back. His windowsill now held a small family of cacti. He stopped looking outside for something that wasn’t his to see.

Sebastian had been an open friend but there were things Joseph couldn’t learn about, even through careful observation. Myra had been one of them. Her scent was richer than Sebastian’s which she insisted was because he had smoked his lungs black before she had refused to marry him unless he stopped. It had worked to his benefit beyond his obviously happy marriage. He would’ve given them up anyway, he argued back, before Lily was born.

Myra remained an enigma to Joseph, still to this day, but Lily’s birth taught Joseph more about Sebastian than spending everyday hulled up the same office with the man. Joseph had been the third person to hold Lily, passed to him from Sebastian who had cried without shame. That itself had been a tell-tale sign of Sebastian’s change.

He took on parenthood with determination but with fear, something he had a hard time admitting but did so when they worked late, when they drove to a case that had them loading their guns and Sebastian holding his breath. Being a parent was more terrifying than walking into a druglord’s home, the senior detective had laughed, without humour. _Before, it was about me. My life. But now it only crosses my mind ‘cause how’d Myra cope without me? How’d she raise our baby alone?_

Joseph had watched families grow without attachment, having never exercised the desire for one himself, knowing the impossibility from the vampires that mourned the loss of that privilege. History had painted vampires as unfeeling, uncaring creatures. They hadn’t seen what Joseph had, of women making graves for children they had never known.

Lily made Sebastian more careful, less selfish. Being a father had made Sebastian a better man.

Of course, Joseph had spent so long watching Sebastian as though he were an outsider than he didn’t realise the most fundamental part of a werewolf was present in their friendship, in the late nights and coffee breaks (Joseph liked the smell even if he couldn’t appreciate the taste.) And how one day when a suspect raised a gun on Joseph and Sebastian broke the man’s hand, Joseph realised that Sebastian Castellanos lived for his wife and daughter but he would die for Joseph, all the same.

But Joseph couldn’t name what it was until he betrayed Sebastian.

 _Loyalty_.

*

Later, when Sebastian had begun to forgive him for the IA report, he would tell Joseph about the drinking. He’d explain that when Lily had died, he and Myra had mourned their lost cub as wolves that night but the pain had been too raw for Myra to bear. So she threw herself into her work and Sebastian, at a crossroad between shifting to feel entirely and a longing to feel nothing at all, drank. The alcohol stopped him from shifting too which was a blessing in itself, he would tell Joseph, after showing up at his apartment in the middle of the night, naked and bloody but more vulnerable than Joseph had ever seen him, even after Lily’s funeral and the many drunken episodes in which Joseph had to drive him home. His shoulders were weak and his eyes, once so bright, so full of life, hurt Joseph to look at. But it hurt more to turn away from his best friend.

He was still learning about werewolves, so many years later, with rabbit blood on his towel and Sebastian’s shaking hands gripping his sleeve like a child as he explained that this was his first shift since the one after Lily’s death, since Myra had upped and disappeared and “I can’t smell her anymore. She was my mate, Joseph. But her scent is gone. It’s worse than finding her dead.”

“Is it?” Joseph had asked, not expecting an answer.

He didn’t get one. Sebastian let go off his sleeve and sat back. He was wearing a spare shirt of his own, forgotten from a time long ago when Joseph’s apartment was open to football, takeout and beer (Joseph liked the smell of it far less than coffee.) He hadn’t buttoned it up, his neck and chest still stained with blood and Joseph turned away to find another towel to clean him up so he wouldn’t stare at the broad chest, tanned and muscular, and the trail of hair downwards from his navel, path cut short by the jeans Joseph had dug out from the bottom of his clothes hamper.

As Joseph pressed the damp towel to his chest, Sebastian spoke, voice tired and eyes closed, “Did ya ever hear those heretics preachin’ about us, Joseph? Talkin’… ‘bout evolution and all that?”

“Of course.”

“Always thought it was a load of shit but there were some things…” Sebastian’s head rolled back and Joseph’s hand shook as he stepped between the other man’s legs to clean him more comfortably. “We live to survive but ya know, they say werewolves have human hearts so we feel… human. Live for other things. I didn’t get it – not ‘til Myra an’ Lily.”

Joseph realised then that he wasn’t shaking but Sebastian was. The other man’s voice was barely wavering but his shoulders trembled, as if he was struggling not to cry. “Sometimes… felt like loving them was keepin’ me alive. Now, it feels like its killin’ me.” Sebastian lifted his head slowly to meet Joseph’s gaze. The towel was soaked in blood but Sebastian’s eyes were dry. “You ever feel like that?”

“Can’t exactly want to die when I’m already dead, Seb.” It could’ve been a joke but it was said so softly, it just felt sad. Sebastian’s eyes wouldn’t leave him. Joseph thought of the early years after his Turning, the guilt that still choked him.

Sebastian tilted his head back, apparently having found the answer he needed in Joseph’s hands, bloodstained and tight around the towel, and Joseph continued to clean him up, gentle even though there were no wounds.

By the time Joseph was done, Sebastian had fallen asleep and Joseph allowed his natural grace to make his steps silent as he disposed of the towel and found a blanket for the man. He buttoned up his shirt slowly, listening carefully to the shallowness of Sebastian’s breathing as if expecting the man to bolt awake at a minor brush of his fingertips against warm skin. There was a gentleness in his features, Joseph surveyed when he stepped back. A peacefulness that Joseph hadn't seen in him since Lily died.

He wondered briefly about what kind of wolf Lily would've been, with her golden skin and dark curls. About whether Myra was alive but not in the way he had previously envisioned (hoped) but rather a black wolf, coat sleek and beautiful, camouflaged into darkness so no one would find her.

A stray strand of hair fell over Sebastian’s eyes and Joseph reached forward, thoughtlessly, to push it back, to cup Sebastian’s cheek in his bare hand and feel the jaw bone and the stubble, unchanging over the years, even as their lives had.

Sebastian sniffed suddenly and Joseph almost jerked his hand back but he didn’t open his eyes as he pressed his nose into Joseph’s palm before his face relaxed again entirely. Joseph bit back a laugh as Sebastian nuzzled into his hand, chest humming a growl of satisfaction.

That night, Joseph dreamed of a wolf a mix of dark browns, not yet black, but richer and eyes like the forests it made home, protecting him even as the gun in Joseph's gloved hands was overflowing with silver bullets.

*

“Hey, Joseph?”

Joseph didn’t even look up when Sebastian called out to him, too engrossed in his work but partly because his advanced vision still allowed him the sight of Sebastian tossing his pen in perfect spins before catching it only to repeat the motion and certainly _not_ do his own paperwork. “Hm?”

“What does human blood taste like?”

Joseph looked up properly now to roll his eyes. “I thought we’d established a no myths in the office rule.”

“I’ll tell you how deer tastes, if you want.”

Joseph paused before admitting, uneasily, “I’ve had deer.”

Sebastian let his pen clatter to the desk and leant forward, his curiosity shining in his eyes. His gaze reminded Joseph alarmingly of an expectant puppy. “Really?”

Joseph had to look away for more reasons than one. “I tried to see if it would… satisfy me.”

“Did it?”

“Do you think I would be a regular at the local blood bank if it had?”

If Sebastian was hurt by the sharpness of Joseph’s tone, he didn’t react. Nonetheless, Joseph winced and his next words sounded like an apology. “Back then, there weren’t rules protecting both sides, Seb. You went out at night, you used your charms and you convinced whoever to bare their neck to you. And they did.”

“But?”

An apology but also a peace offering. Joseph breathed out heavily. They had dabbled in Joseph’s human life without depth but the topic of the early years of his Turning had never been breached, an unspoken rule between them that the shames that weighed down on Joseph’s head one hundred years later would not be mentioned until Joseph was ready.

Looking at Sebastian’s gaze, steady on his, without judgement, Joseph knew he was. He’d been ready for a long time now. Long in mortal years. He realised, with a jolt, that he had started counting them since he met the hard-headed, warm-hearted werewolf.

Joseph carried on, hurrying to cover up the direction of his thoughts. “But the humans weren’t given a choice and yet we were told our secrecy was more important. Some of my kind took… more than a meal – sometimes they took lives – but even if they didn’t, the humans would wake up with a recollection of nothing but a vague memory of a one-night stand with a pale face and puncture holes on their neck that would look like nothing more than a hickey. I was meant to be grateful that we had this ability to deceive, to keep ourselves safe, but I… I didn’t want to hurt humans, Seb. I never have.”

If it was about the debt he felt he owed to humankind, Joseph had felt it before he’d even taste of their blood. Before he was Turned, Joseph attended Sunday church with his shirt buttoned to the top and his shoes shined but he had never really believed in it, a God that hated the love between a man and a man but stood by and let the bodies of the young show up at the doors of their families with but a single drop of blood in their dry veins. Joseph was meant to be one of them but the last bead of blood was taken from him and the cross on the rosary he kept in his pocket out of habit had burned to touch when he woke up, cold and empty, so empty. But maybe that had been God’s punishment for him, a sinner through and through, because Joseph had always cared more for the love of another man than the love from his God.

For a long time, part of him still believed in a God, the part that he had convinced himself was his humanity, the only connection to his life before death.

“The blood banks don’t hurt anyone, Joseph.”

But Joseph had found salvation for his sins within the irony, the contradiction sitting in front of him.

“They could go towards saving someone’s life.” He met Sebastian’s eyes steadily, knowing the other man wouldn’t accept a response otherwise, years of work in the force holding their gazes. Beyond the fog of his first thirty or so years, his vampire senses too sharp for the pixelated time a century ago, Joseph’s memory was impeccable, an advantage to his job, but he couldn’t remember the exact moment he fell in love with his work partner.

Sebastian’s voice was low and almost soft as he said, “They are. Yours.”

It had been years now since Lily had died and Myra had disappeared but Joseph hadn’t forgiven himself for reporting Sebastian to IA, even though he accepted that it had been the right thing to do. But it wasn’t his own forgiveness he longed for but Sebastian’s and it was here in the loyalty he still had for Joseph’s life.

Joseph turned away, unable to find the words to respond. He’d made a habit of looking out the blinds just as Sebastian used to, a paranoid tic. Now he did it because it was the only place to look so he didn’t have to meet Sebastian’s eyes. Not yet.

Sebastian spoke after a while with a stretch, a yawn that suggested a late night. “I wouldn’t wanna feed on deer anyway. They taste God awful.”

“How’s the meat?” Joseph’s hands remained flat against the desk, steadying him, but he could look at Sebastian again.

Sebastian grinned back. “I prefer beef. Cooked.”

“Of course you do.” Joseph rolled his eyes, recalling the first BBQ Sebastian and Myra had in their new home where Sebastian had singlehandedly ate most of it, unsurprising to the few werewolf guests and Joseph but horror and wonder had coloured the expressions of the their humans guests (Connelly had even remarked that Sebastian was ‘not quite human.’)

“D’ya suggest cooked deer?”

“I’d have thought the heat of your mouth would’ve roasted it.”

Sebastian smirked. “Better overcooked than bloody, that’s what I say.”

“And the rabies?” Joseph said lightly.

“Had my shots. I’m all clean.” Sebastian’s teeth gleamed, not as sharp as Joseph’s but deadly, all the same. “I'd be more than happy to demonstrate.”

Joseph shook his head in what he hoped appeared to be resignation at Sebastian’s relentless teasing and not his own attempt to shake the mental image of Sebastian’s mouth at his neck, the scrap of his teeth against a pulseless vein. He had kidded himself long enough. The desire was not about revenge. He didn’t want Sebastian to touch him out of punishment.

“Do your paperwork, Detective.”

If Sebastian had noticed the inner conflict Joseph was having, he didn’t say but simply mocked a salute. “Yes, master.”

*

Joseph should’ve realised something was on Sebastian’s mind when he offered to help Joseph with organising the paperwork but simply dismissed it to be Sebastian looking for an excuse to get out of the office and hence avoid his own pile. Joseph let him, humming quietly into the silence as he counted through the papers between his hands.

“So no heart, huh?”

Joseph peered at his partner suspiciously before setting the copies he needed to black and white ink and replying hesitantly as the printer noisily came to life, “Yes. That’s correct.”

“So that means no blood, right? Except what you… uh, consume.”

Joseph turned to face the other man fully, confusion lacing his demand, “What are you trying to get at exactly, Seb?”

Sebastian answered by raising a hand to the back of his neck and it was then that Joseph noticed the slight flush to Sebastian’s skin. Joseph stared, bewildered to find that Sebastian’s words were gruff with _embarrassment_. “I just… thought that if you’re- you don’t have blood pumping through your body then you-”

“Then I _what_?”

“Can you still…” Sebastian made a wild gesture that could’ve meant anything but realisation had begun to dawn on Joseph, slow and horrifying. “Ya know-”

“God.”

“- get it up.”

“ _God_.”

“Uh.”

Both Joseph and Sebastian jumped at the intrusion of a third voice, despite neither being the type that could be easily snuck up on considering their sensitive senses. They turned to find Connelly, gaping at them, hands curled around a bag of doughnuts that he had obviously bought over to share, as he did by routine every other Thursday.

For a brief moment, Joseph panicked. How much had the other man heard? But _enough_ was the answer, judging from his uncomfortable – but not terrified or disbelieving – expression. Joseph wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be relieved that his identity was still uncovered or insulted by how Connelly’s gaze darted down to Joseph’s crotch, as if the current situation would confirm his incompetency. Joseph glared fiercely at Connelly when their eyes met again and he at least had the decency to look apologetic and… _sympathetic?_

Their awkward eye contact was broken by a snigger to Joseph’s side. They turned just to see the senior detective burst out laughing, pausing to breathe and attempt to speak but only laughing harder. Connelly let out a nervous chuckle but Joseph remained silent, drinking in the sight of the senior detective laughing. He looked as though he had aged a decade since Lily’s death but the laughing wrinkles were still there, folding at the corner of his eyes, capturing tears as Sebastian used the photocopier to hold himself up.

Sebastian would think Joseph stormed off in irritation but in reality, he had left because the sight had made the emptiness in his chest fill up with a warmth that made him forget he should’ve been too dead to feel it.

*

Sebastian never got the chance to break the hand of this one.

It had happened in what Joseph felt like snapshots of moments. Not photographs he’d particularly liked to keep. Though bullet wounds wouldn’t kill him, unless the bullets were cleansed in holy water, they were a pain in the ass to get out. One moment he was trying to calm down a suspect that was getting too worked up to do any of them the good, the next he was turning towards Sebastian for some help and the third, he felt sharpness in his shoulder, an unfamiliar ooze of blood that wasn’t his but wept out of his wound all the same.

It was barely any blood at all but it was enough that his vision spun and he fell against his partner, who had swore colourfully in his ear as the suspect – guilty – made a getaway. Had Joseph been able to speak, he would’ve insisted Sebastian go after him but instead there were more snapshots. Being pulled into the car, too warm hands holding his face, fumbling, swearing and then Sebastian was pressing his thumb in between Joseph’s lips as a button popped, as Joseph was pulled impossibly close to his work partner, as Sebastian murmured, “C’mon, Joseph. Bite me.”

Joseph remembered the feeling of biting Sebastian clearly, eyes closed but instinct, _survival_ had taken over when he heard the heartbeat, the rush of blood as though it was in his own head. His tongue pressed against skin that tasted of sweat and something else – something that felt like fingerprints and Sebastian entirely. And then he sunk his teeth into the other man’s neck and felt Sebastian relax underneath him as the first pump of blood stained Joseph’s lips. Sebastian didn’t taste like other humans but rather an awkward mixture of human and animal which wasn’t necessarily pleasant but Joseph was too weak to find any complaints, not when it was the life of the man he needed and not when he able to find enough strength to wrap his arms around Sebastian’s neck, to dig his fingers into his hair, to pull as his teeth pressed deeper, rewarding him a hiss that wasn’t out of displeasure.

He hadn’t lost control for decades and Joseph didn’t intend to start now. As soon as Sebastian’s hand felt limp at his waist, Joseph’s eyes opened and his fangs retracted. He pulled back abruptly, head swimming but vision clear, and found himself on Sebastian’s lap and their hard-ons proof of what had conspired in the moments of euphoria.

The puncture wounds at Sebastian neck were sealing already, part of the healing perks of being a werewolf, but his shirt had torn under Joseph’s grip and his breath was delightfully uneven as he said, “Guess… that answers the question about… you being able to get hard.”

Joseph didn't answer, his thoughts processing the snapshots, a film that developed in shame but without regret. He had gone years without feeding in front of Sebastian, even though all he was doing was puncturing small sachets of blood, cold from being refrigerated.

But this was as honest as he could be. Sebastian's blood was in his veins as though it was pumping through his body with the goal of sustaining his life.

Joseph was honest to himself, painfully so, aware of the absence of heartbeat now that he had memorised another, from nights of shouldering into Sebastian’s apartment just to see if the other man was still alive. No, _hear_. He would hold his breath even though he didn’t need to breathe and only let it out when his ears picked up the sound of a heart thrumming, stubborn.

Eight minutes. Eight minutes were as long as the human body could go without a beating heart. He allowed himself that. Joseph was dead but there were times when Sebastian made him feel alive. Just like this, face flushed with another’s blood but Sebastian had never looked at him like he was any less of a person, not even now. Especially not now.

Sebastian’s erection still strained against his work trousers, his face and neck surprisingly and wonderfully flushed.

Eight minutes were enough.

*

Joseph looked up as a pack of paperwork dropped on his desk with flourish and found Sebastian grinning down at him smugly, arms crossed over his chest. The Facebook killer had been sent behind bars and the last of the paperwork appeared to be done. Joseph couldn’t hide his impressed smile. This was the fastest Sebastian had worked in years. “Good job.”

“Jeez. I should be telling you that.” But his gruff tone slipped under the accomplished smile. Joseph wondered how much of it had to do with the completed paperwork and how much had to do with Joseph’s compliment.

And so he teased him lightly, “I can practically see your tail wagging, Seb.”

“Uh.”

The two detectives turned towards the office door, ajar, to find Juli Kidman, staring between them both in something that Joseph could only deduce as awkward horror. She didn’t seem to be surprised though and again, Joseph wondered if this was something he should be offended about.

Sebastian, of course, was already beginning to grin.

Juli quickly apologised for interrupting anything, stating that she’d come back later, and Joseph spluttered, unable to stop her departure due to the arm that wound around his waist, pinning him back against his desk.

“Let go of me, Seb. I need to go apologise.”

Sebastian pressed a kiss to the back of Joseph’s neck and Joseph could feel his smirk, triumphant. “No, you don’t. I’m half convinced she knows what we are.”

“She smells human.” And she did but flowery. Lilacs, like the ones Sebastian had bought him after their first date, a surprisingly romantic move that Joseph hadn’t realised he’d longed for.

“But she doesn’t look it.” Sebastian wasn’t wrong. Joseph had entertained the idea of their fellow detective being part fae, her resemblance to the rare but impossibly sharp creatures somewhat disturbing.

But Sebastian didn’t need to know that. “I’m sure she’ll be delighted with the compliment, Seb. You’re a true ladies, man.”

Sebastian chuckled into his shoulder, not at all put off by the flatness in his tone. “Cheer up, Jojo. She's probably more surprised that I'm the one wearin’ the collar in this relationship.”

Joseph groaned but had long since stopped struggling in Sebastian’s arms, letting him press his grin – dangerous and predatory and beautiful – into the smaller detective’s skin with little purpose but simple pleasure, in the light of the office with the open blinds. It wasn’t so pretty on Joseph’s skin but he was grateful for the sun, illuminating the colours in Sebastian’s eyes, his features as Joseph touched him with sunburnt hands.

Slowly, moments like this made Sebastian’s smile stop feeling like a memory and instead started becoming one.

*

For a while after Joseph had drank Sebastian’s blood for the first (but not for the last time, they were ashamed to admit), they hadn’t spoke about it. They were instinctual animals and had somehow found survival in each other but neither spoke of life or death, not when Sebastian kissed between his shoulders as he pressed into him in the darkness of Joseph’s apartment, not when Joseph tongued the puncture wounds as he rode Sebastian behind his work desk.

Not until the next full moon and Joseph had hurried down two flights of stairs just to find a wolf, larger than life, its coat brown, dark and glossy even in the blackness of the night it occupied, sitting patiently at the doorstep of his apartment block, rising to full height when Joseph had stumbled out, his hair ruffled and appearance-sake glasses forgotten.

It was never said but Joseph learnt, face pressed against the softness of Sebastian’s fur, that just as vampires were against homes, werewolves were dependent on them.

When Sebastian shifted back to human form at sunrise, Joseph had draped his trench coat over his naked body, bloodless this time, and Sebastian had spoken hesitantly, as if unsure of himself. “So… what now?”

A lot of things were never said (learnt from observation, understood by action) but a lot of things were, over breakfast that Joseph had learnt to cook when he had babysat Lily. Joseph had always liked the smell of coffee but he wasn’t opposed to the taste of it on Sebastian’s mouth, bittersweet as they were.

 _We have time_.

Sebastian had smiled, soft and tired but ultimately content as Joseph stood between his thighs, combing back hair that definitely needed a cut, revelling in the feeling of the strands between his fingertips, almost as soft as the fur coat Joseph had spent the night with his cheek against. _’m not getting any younger, Joseph._

Joseph had let their forehead press together. Human time but time, all the same. _Technically, neither am I_.

They would worry about that later, the implication of time, how much they had wasted. The threat of time was for another time in itself. Now, Sebastian would make a habit of circling Joseph’s apartment block every month. Joseph would move the cacti from the windowsill to above the fire place, surrounding a series of framed photographs, the two detectives with a smiling Kidman, a laughing Myra holding a green-eyed little girl that reached for the camera with chubby hands and at the centre, a framed photograph of himself and Sebastian (in human form), taken by an enthusiastic Connelly who had talked so much in the process that Sebastian’s smile in the photo was leading onto a grimace.

Joseph had finally found the answers to all his questions, in a green-eyed wolf and a grey city that smelt like pollution and home.


End file.
